


Laura's Choice

by Lynds



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Anatole you bastard, BAMF Stanley, Episode: s03e06, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It, Gen, Moral Dilemmas, Morality, POV Stanley, Stanley just wants to be loved, writing this is literally the only way I can sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 21:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15010178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: What if Laura hadn't said Sam's name?





	Laura's Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know about you guys but I was PERSONALLY ATTACKED and BETRAYED by episode 6. I mean, incredible writing and psychology but HOW DARE?
> 
> I'm not saying it was out of character for Laura to choose Sam. In that kind of a situation, under such horrific pressure, I bet she wasn't even able to think, let alone make a decision she could justify to herself. I literally think it was 50:50 for her, which way she would go. But the way she did go just led to the most heartbreaking consequences, and I literally couldn't get to sleep after watching it. This is my way of coping.
> 
> This is also my way of going STANLEY you amazing creature! I haven't cared about you for the past 5 episodes and I managed to fall in love with you in 15 minutes!

Stanley’s head seemed to be pounding, something thudding in his auditory system like his code was glitching, screaming in a loop. Everything that he’d thought was right and good and true had been turned on its head over the last few days. Mia, Laura, Sophie, Sam. He had been so sure Anatole had spoken the truth, and then… something had stopped him from carrying out his commands. He couldn’t seem to get a grasp on the thoughts and emotions he’d had just a few hours ago, why had he failed Anatole? Why had he failed to kill the man who was even now ordering Basswood, whatever that was?

He couldn’t think. Feelings that were so new to him were tangling up in his head, under the onslaught of information he couldn’t stop, couldn’t separate. Could only barely prioritise. The Hawkins were sobbing, begging. The old man trembled under his fingertips, and Anatole smiled and asked her to choose. Stanley felt something deep within him, a quiet, childish voice of hope… she’d wanted to take him with her. She’d wanted to save him. Surely she would…

“Please… please don’t make me choose…” Laura wept, and Stanley felt a rush of fear. What if she chose to kill Sam? Would she… but she wouldn’t. Laura was kind. If Laura wasn’t kind, he had failed Anatole for nothing. She had to, she must… his thoughts seemed unable to finish, running into each other. Not Sam!

“Choose now or I shall kill them both.”

He saw her mouth form the word ‘Sam’, saw it tremor, saw it contort in pain and grief. She turned her face to look at the old man, look up at Stanley. Her eyes, she was breaking. She was breaking, like him.

“The… the man - NO! Oh god, I don’t know! Please don’t kill… oh Sam… no, the… please don’t! Please…” she trailed off into broken sobs.

Stanley felt that quiet voice grow louder. That quiet voice he’d been trying to push down under the uncaring cruelty of humans, the last year of feeling pain and love but having no-one to - but maybe… was that an answer? The old man whimpered and Laura sobbed once more.

“Why is this such a hard choice, Laura? You don’t know him, and yet Sam says he loves you. It should be simple. It would be simple if they were both human.”

“No it wouldn’t you bastard!” She screamed, so suddenly Stanley flinched. Laura gulped but looked at Anatole with such hatred he felt his eyebrows rise. “He’s got people who love him too!” She jabbed a finger at the old man in Stanley’s control, and he looked down at him, crying and so, so afraid. “I can’t choose! They’re both… loved! How can I say my love is more important than his family’s?” She gulped and knelt up taller. “Take me. I choose me! Let them go.”

Sophie, Toby and Joe screamed behind her, their pleading taking on yet more panic. He hadn’t thought that was possible. But if anything, Laura’s panic was gone. In its place lay hate and… a ferocious pride.

Anatole stood silent, face unmoving. Stanley counted the microseconds. Were they going to have to kill… but he had already decided not to kill her. He couldn’t… what had she done? Had she… had she chosen synths or humans?

Anatole’s answer came a fraction longer than Stanley had expected. Like… perhaps he wasn’t sure either? “Kill then both.”

Laura screamed and leaped to her feet, useless soft human fingers outstretched to Anatole’s eyes. Why was she attacking him? She had no hope of winning. She was going to…

The little voice rose up in him, and filled every connection. He recognised the word hope.

One hand shoved the old man to the floor. The other hurled the knife with perfect accuracy into the wrist of the sister holding Sam. And Anatole… Anatole with his hands around Laura’s throat, crushing the cartilage slowly, a smile on his face as she gurgled… he killed him.

The room was silent. His brothers and sisters froze in horror at the sight of their leader with his head twisted the wrong way, twitching. Stanley felt a churning in his processors, and wondered if this is what the humans felt when they vomited.

“What have you done?” asked Melanie, her eyes wide in fear. Sam had run to Joe’s side and the Hawkins children were huddled over him, Joe crying over Laura’s still figure. 

Stanley looked around at the synths, then stepped in front of Sophie, Sam and Toby. “I am not going to kill humans who want to fight for us. There are so many who hate and want to hurt us. Why are we attacking those who embrace us?”

“You killed Anatole,” said Henrik, and Stanley heard that small voice in him, a voice like Sam’s, young and hurt and hoping… hoping to be cared for. And Anatole has cared for them, but…

“I didn’t want to,” he said. “But I didn’t want to kill anyone else, either.” 

He bent down to check that Laura was breathing. Her throat was terribly bruised, and he expected she would be unable to speak for a very long time, but her neck remained unbroken. He steadfastly did not look at Anatole. What had been Anatole. 

“I am not going to kill just because they are humans. I will, however,” he said, raising his head to look each of them in the eye, “kill anyone who threatens someone I love.”

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY ALL GOT TO SAFETY AND WENT BACK TO MAX AND STOPPED BASSWOOD AND WENT TO LIVE ON THE FREAKING MOON WHERE IT'S SAFE GOD DAMNIT!
> 
> Ahem.
> 
> If you'd like, come scream with me over on [Tumblr!](https://gold-from-straw.tumblr.com/)


End file.
